Every family has one: the sibling who is always just a little bit behind the curve when it comes to getting his life together. For sisters Liz, Miranda and Natalie, that person is their perennially upbeat brother Ned, an erstwhile organic farmer whose willingness to rely on the honesty of mankind is a less-than-optimum strategy for a tidy, trouble-free existence. Ned may be utterly lacking in common sense, but he is their brother and so, after his girlfriend dumps him and boots him off the farm, his sisters once again come to his rescue. As Liz, Miranda and Natalie each take a turn at housing Ned, their brother's unfailing commitment to honesty creates more than a few messes in their comfortable routines. But as each of their lives begins to unravel, Ned's family comes to realize that maybe, in believing and trusting the people around him; Ned isn't such an idiot after all.
Genres: Comedy Running Time: 1 hr. 35 min. Release Date: August 26th, 2011 (wide) MPAA Rating: R for for sexual content including nudity, and for language throughout. Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Cast And Credits
Starring:
Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Steve Coogan
Directed by:
Jesse Peretz
Produced by:
Anthony Bregman, Peter Saraf, Marc Turtletaub
Our Idiot Brother†blends two of the staples of modern screen comedy: it’s a bittersweet, indie-ish study of grown-up sibling relations, and also a raucous celebration of male immaturity. At its center are three sisters â€" variously wanton, manipulative and unfulfilled â€" and their sweet, goofy man-child of a brother. At first it is the brother’s inability or refusal to behave like a grown-up that seems to be the big problem, but by the end he functions as a kind of holy fool, exposing the hypocrisy and unhappiness of everyone around him.
Rashida Jones, left, with Zooey Deschanel in “Our Idiot Brother,†in which the brother, out of jail, visits his sisters and whose presence reveals flaws in their lives.
This shaggy innocent is named Ned, and if he were played by anyone other than Paul Rudd, he would be utterly unbearable. A cheerful hippie living in a bohemian-rural stretch of upstate New York, Ned is so dim and trusting that he sells a bag of weed to a friendly-seeming police officer in uniform. Released on parole, Ned goes home to find that his erstwhile lady friend, Janet (Kathryn Hahn), has taken up with Billy (a taller, dimmer, red-headed version of Ned, played by T. J. Miller). She also refuses to give up custody of Willie Nelson, a sandy-haired canine version of Ned, who turns out to be a handy plot device at several crucial points.
If Liz is the stereotypical anxious mom, Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) and Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) are no less familiar types, from other movies if not precisely from real urban life. Miranda is an ambitious, insecure careerist, angling for a big break at Vanity Fair (where Evgenia Peretz, one of the screenwriters, is a contributing editor).
Natalie, living in a communal crash pad and tiptoeing toward commitment with her serious-minded lover, Cindy (Rashida Jones), is an artist’s model aspiring to be a stand-up comedian, or a performance artist, or something that involves standing up and talking about herself in a dimly lighted, sparsely peopled room.
Efficiently directed by Jesse Peretz (Ms. Peretz’s brother, evidently quite capable), “Our Idiot Brother†is a thin, unconvincing movie made likable by the charm and skill of its cast and by a script (by Ms. Peretz and her husband, David Schisgall) peppered with wit and insight.
Mr. Coogan is as much a master of genial hostility as Ms. Mortimer is of emotional vulnerability, and the two of them add credibility to their warmed-over characters. It is always nice to see Ms. Banks and Ms. Deschanel, but Miranda and Natalie are more ideas than people, and the performers are stuck being gratingly energetic (Ms. Banks) and exasperatingly slack (Ms. Deschanel).
Ms. Jones, given less to work with, does more than most of her counterparts, and when Cindy is around, you might wish that the projectionist would change the reels and show a movie about her instead of all these other tiresome folks.
A handful of scenes â€" a visit to a cultish self-help seminar, a family game of charades with Mom (Shirley Knight), a profile interview gone off the rails â€" are sharp, funny and surprising. But the filmmakers mostly look for humor in obvious, picked-over places. Can we please have a moratorium on private-school interviews? Like yoga classes (which this movie blessedly leaves alone), they are hard in real life and suspiciously easy in movies.
And far too much in “Our Idiot Brother†is much too easy, including the soft, sentimental indulgence it lavishes on Ned and the satirical barbs it flings at his sisters. “You’ve ruined our lives,†they complain, almost in chorus.
But, in fact, Ned’s mellow, agrarian authenticity has only revealed the bad faith on which those lives are based. Against all the posturing, duplicity and empty ambition, he upholds simple virtues of fidelity, professional ethics and common-sense parenting. This dude, who had seemed at first glance to be a lesser Lebowski, content to tend his garden and smoke a few nice buds, turns out to be a curiously retrograde paladin: the reluctant scourge and benevolent protector of bossy, wayward and otherwise messed-up women.
And for all its sweetness, this movie leaves behind the sour taste of unexamined male entitlement. However clever those sisters may be, they cannot do it for themselves. Even if he’s an idiot, brother knows best.
Our Idiot Brother†blends two of the staples of modern screen comedy: it’s a bittersweet, indie-ish study of grown-up sibling relations, and also a raucous celebration of male immaturity. At its center are three sisters â€" variously wanton, manipulative and unfulfilled â€" and their sweet, goofy man-child of a brother. At first it is the brother’s inability or refusal to behave like a grown-up that seems to be the big problem, but by the end he functions as a kind of holy fool, exposing the hypocrisy and unhappiness of everyone around him.
If Liz is the stereotypical anxious mom, Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) and Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) are no less familiar types, from other movies if not precisely from real urban life. Miranda is an ambitious, insecure careerist, angling for a big break at Vanity Fair (where Evgenia Peretz, one of the screenwriters, is a contributing editor). 
But, in fact, Ned’s mellow, agrarian authenticity has only revealed the bad faith on which those lives are based. Against all the posturing, duplicity and empty ambition, he upholds simple virtues of fidelity, professional ethics and common-sense parenting. This dude, who had seemed at first glance to be a lesser Lebowski, content to tend his garden and smoke a few nice buds, turns out to be a curiously retrograde paladin: the reluctant scourge and benevolent protector of bossy, wayward and otherwise messed-up women. 
